Between 2006 and 2020, the world is expected to reach a peak in oil production where world demand for oil resources will be greater than the world's available oil supplies. Learn about oil and natural gas depletion and what that means for the global economy and our way of life in the United States.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The US Department of Energy Discusses Peak Oil

In March 2004, the Dept of Energy published a little heralded document on the strategic importance of oil shale; roughly a quarter of the 45 page report is devoted to the subject of oil depletion and its likely consequences. Here are just a few excerpts:

World Discoveries did peak before the 1970's as shown in Figure 6. This figure also shows that no major new field discoveries have been made in decades. Presently, world oil reserves are being depleted three times as fast as they are being discovered...

The disparity between increasing production and declining reserves can have only one outcome: a practical supply limit will be reached and future supply to meet conventional oil demand will not be available. The question is when peak production will occur and what will be its ramifications.

Whether the peak occurs sooner or later is a matter of relative urgency...

In spite of projections for growth of non-OPEC supply, it appears that non-OPEC and no-Former Soviet Union countries hve peaking and are currently declining. The production cycle of countries...and the cumulative quantities produced reasonably follow Hubbert's model.

...Although there is no agreement about the date the world oil production will peak, forecasts presented by USGS geologist Thomas Magoon, and others expect the peak will occur between 2003 and 2020...What is notable about these predictions is that none extend beyond the year 2020. [pp. 7-8] The Nation must start now to respond to peaking global oil production to offset adverse economic and national security impacts. [p.26]

Source : The Party's Over / "Strategic Significance of America's Oil Shale Resource" , US Dept of Energy, March 2004